In a move that further expands Oak View Group’s footprint in the venue business, OVG has
purchased three-year- old Pinnacle Venue Services from Tom Paquette and Doug Higgons and
rebranded it OVG Facilities.

Pinnacle Venue Services brings six management contracts and a thriving security and operation
assessment business to OVG. Peter Luukko, who is co-chair of OVG’s Arena Alliance, will head OVG
Facilities. Sims Hinds (see separate story), has been brought on board as SVP of Business
Development for OVG Facilities. Paquette and Higgons become SVPs of OVG Facilities.

All four industry veterans have a long history of working together in private management of
venues, including stints with SMG, Globe Facility Services and Spectra Venue Management.

Scott Anderson, who joined Pinnacle Venue Services after years as security chief for the San
Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association, where Paquette also worked, will now work
with Prevent Advisors, the security and crowd management division of OVG.

They also have event booking agreements with AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas; Bob
Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware, and Las Colonias Park Amphitheater, also in
Grand Junction, Colo., and are consulting on new construction projects with several cities,
including Norfolk, Va.

Security and operations assessments is a “real growth area for us,” Paquette told Venues
Today, which is also owned by Oak View Group. “We coordinate security for all NBA (National
Basketball Association) overseas games, and have done so almost since the beginning. Scott
Anderson, director of security in San Antonio, is really good and he was our first hire.”
“Then they hired us to do venue assessment of all NBA venues, security and operations. Now we
do security coordination and management for All Star Weekend, the NBA finals and the draft.”

That grew to include National Hockey League venues for security assessments this year, Paquette
added. “We did half the league this year, and are doing the other half next year.”

Major League Baseball and National Football League venues have also sought venue assessment,
booking, consulting and strategic planning services from Pinnacle.

Paquette and Doug Higgons launched Pinnacle in November 2014. Both have more than 25 years of
experience in venue management and both worked for Luukko at other points in their careers.
Paquette recalled the day Comcast Spectacor, where Luukko was president of venue operations,
bought Mich Sauers’ Globe Facility Services, and launched Global Spectrum, which has become
Spectra Venue Management. Paquette and Higgons were working for Sauers at the time. It is déjà
vu for the entire group.

“It’s a small industry. We are really excited,” Paquette said. “We were not for sale nor did Doug
and I ever discuss being for sale. When we were approached by Oak View, they had such unique
and strong assets and vision, it was hard not to get excited about being part of something like
that.”

Venue management is “a business we’re very familiar with and really enjoy,” Luukko said. “Any
good organization is as good as its people. Tom and Doug are two seasoned veterans of the
business, they have some accounts, and it’s a good way to accelerate the growth of OVG
Facilities.”

OVG Facilities will be a different model from OVG’s Arena Alliance. “We support the facilities in
our Alliance, clients who are obviously very sophisticated and run their facilities very well. In OVG
Facilities, we’ll be directly managing and booking facilities, it’s full management,” Luukko said.

That said, the go-forth plan is to be “very flexible. We will create agreements based on the needs
of a venue, whether it’s leases, guarantees, or just booking fees; we’re not closed-minded. We’re
open to the needs of the client,” Luukko said.

That resonates with Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group, who founded another facility
management firm, AEG Facilities, with a similar mission in his previous career. “OVG has been
committed to facility management since day 1 and our goal is to build the biggest facility
management company in the world,” Leiweke said in a statement. “We take a 360-approach to
facility management and when you combine our ground game, assets and relationships, and add to
that Peter’s leadership, we feel we’re poised to do big things.”

OVG clearly has a robust pipeline of projects and deals, and the opportunity for growth in this
space is huge, Luukko added.

OVG, founded by Leiweke and mega-manager Irving Azoff in 2015, currently boasts 30 major
arenas in its Arena Alliance; Prevent Advisors security consulting division; OVG Global Partnerships
(formerly called Narrative Partners) specializing in sponsorship; OVG Media and Conferences,
which includes Pollstar and Pollstar Live and Venues Today and VenuesNow; and OVG Business
Development.